<XML><RECORDS><RECORD><REFERENCE_TYPE>3</REFERENCE_TYPE><REFNUM>7947</REFNUM><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Renaud,K.V.</AUTHOR><AUTHOR>Van Biljon,J.</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><YEAR>2004</YEAR><TITLE>Teaching SQL - Which Pedagogical Horse for this Course?</TITLE><PLACE_PUBLISHED> Proceedings 21st British National Conference on Databases, BNCOD. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol 3112
</PLACE_PUBLISHED><PUBLISHER>N/A</PUBLISHER><LABEL>Renaud:2004:7947</LABEL><ABSTRACT>A student with a Computing Science degree is expected to
have reached a reasonable level of expertise in writing SQL.
SQL is a non-trivial skill to master and is taught
with different degrees of success at different institutions.
When teaching any skill we have to take both previous learning and
experience into consideration as well as the best possible way of
teaching the skill.
When learning a new skill humans form mental models of particular
problems and formulate internal patterns for solving these problems.
When they encounter the same problem later they apply
these previously internalised patterns to solve the problem.
This reality has to be taken into account when selecting a teaching
approach because changing an existing mental model is difficult and
much more difficult than encoding the correct model in the first
place.
This
paper considers two different pedagogical approaches to teaching
SQL and compares and contrasts these in terms of mental models
and cognition. We conclude by making recommendations about the tools that
should be used in teaching SQL if the afore-mentioned mental models
are to be constructed to support a coherent and correct
understanding of SQL semantics and not merely the syntax thereof.
</ABSTRACT></RECORD></RECORDS></XML>